


extrañarte no te hará volver (ni adorarte hará que me ames)

by agathav



Category: La Casa de las Flores | The House of Flowers (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Light Smut, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21566095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agathav/pseuds/agathav
Summary: A week after they win Paulina's trial, Maria Jose decides it's time for her to leave.Again.
Relationships: Paulina de la Mora/María José Riquelme
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	extrañarte no te hará volver (ni adorarte hará que me ames)

**Author's Note:**

> Wish I could dedicate this to my majolina mutuals, but they're gonna hate me for it so...I'm dedicating it to them anyways.
> 
> And Fey and Bia for being my cheerleaders, always.
> 
> Un beso.
> 
> Título es todo el amor de mi vida, Frida Kahlo.

She felt her before she saw her.

A cold, gentle hand on her elbow demanding her attention, the simple touch making her body start with an overwhelming storm of feelings. They hadn’t touched—properly, purposefully—in so long, it was a torturous kind of relief to feel her. Just her hand, on her elbow.

Maria Jose looked down at her bed, at the chaos of unorganized luggage, thinking she could laugh. Three times Maria Jose had decided to leave, and three times Paulina had decided she should be there as she did it.

To shove the blade deeper. To fulfill a cliché of making it harder than it had to be.

“Do you have to leave so soon?” Maria Jose wasn’t one to answer questions people already knew the answers to. “I just…I can’t bear you going and taking Bruno. Not now.” Pronounced Paulina with less pause than usual, rushed, with that shake in her voice that always gave away when she was desperate.

The shake had been there when she had begged Maria Jose to explain how she’d kept _the_ secret for so long; it had been there when they said goodbye in that hotel room after their divorce, and it had been there when Paulina had called for help to get her father out of jail, 5 years after. Her voice shook when she had said “Should we try this again?” at that airport and it had shaken when she had asked Maria Jose to stay, before all of this.

_Are you breaking up with me? No, look at me! No. Please, don’t._

But Maria Jose hadn’t listened, she hadn’t given in like she always did. She had left Paulina in the middle of her grief for her mother and her obsession with both House of Flowers and her thirst for revenge. Now, she knew it had been a mistake.

One she would never forgive herself for.

Not after receiving Bruno’s call. She had been so glad to see that he’d called, but she hadn’t gotten a single word in before hearing him say, “Ma? Ma, you have to come back. It’s about mom.” Bruno’s voice shook like Paulina’s when he was desperate. Maria Jose had never heard him sound like that before.

_It’s about mom._

The words had filled her with dread and fear so cold and cruel she thought she’d never stop feeling it.

“Paulina,” She sighed, pulling her elbow from the other woman’s grasp, softly. She was always gentle with Paulina, careful. “I told you what was going to happen after the trial, and you agreed. If the problem is Bruno, maybe he can stay another week. Classes don’t start until—”

“No, it’s not _just_ Bruno, Maria Jose and you _know_ that.” Maria Jose said nothing because she couldn’t. She didn’t want to feel it, but hope made her belly flutter. It made her sick. “And I know we talked about it, but—”

“Here you are, not keeping your word.” Maria interrupted with more harshness than she intended, shoving her favorite green blouse into her bag, then the blue one.

“Maria—”

“And the worst part is, I knew you would do this. I knew you would… _Fuck_.” She cursed, forcing her favorite heels into her luggage, making no progress at all. “Pau, when the trial was over, you asked me to stay another week to give you time to settle and I _did_. Now, Bruno and I have to go back to Madrid. He needs to get back to a healthy routine and I have to go beg for my job back.”

“Please, look at me.” Paulina said, like she always did when she wanted to convince her, because Maria Jose had very few weaknesses and Paulina’s eyes were one of them.

“No. Paulina, I’m leaving. For good, this time and I think we can both agree it’s for the best.”

“I want to go with you.” Paulina whispered, her hand wrapping around Maria Jose’s arm again, drawing Maria’s body back to meet the front of hers. It made Majo want to turn around. It made her want to kiss Paulina, hold her, _fuck_ her. It made her want to forget the last two weeks. It made her want to forget why giving into Paulina was the wrong call. “Please, let me come with you.”

“No.” Paulina breathed in sharply at that, but her hold only tightened, her other arm circling her waist. “Paulina—”

“I asked you for a week and you gave it to me, it’s true,” Paulina murmured, burying her head in the lawyer’s neck. Maria Jose let out a sigh, desire beginning to warm her all over as Paulina’s hand got closer to her chest. “but you only looked at me when you had to. I wanted you to look at me, to _talk_ to me. Why didn’t you?” Her hand found purchase on Maria Jose’s breast, claiming it unashamedly, pressing a kiss to her neck.

_Because I came here for you and Bruno and I lost my job and you lost me, and you lost yourself._

_Because I love you and you need me, and I want you to love me._

“Paulina,” Maria Jose whispered, taking Paulina’s hand in hers, even as her neck moved on its own to make more room for Paulina’s mouth. “You can’t do this.”

“You’re leaving me again and you won’t even give me this?” Paulina demanded, as she always did, taking advantage of Maria Jose holding her hand and making her turn around.

She was beautiful. A rare kind of beautiful Maria Jose had never seen before her. Tonight, Paulina’s face was bare and bright, her freckles standing out against an endearing blush, her dark hair framing her face in thick locks. She had come into Maria Jose’s room with this in mind, she realized, when she noticed Paulina wore nothing but Majo’s favorite silk slip. She looked down at herself and back at Maria Jose, their gazes connecting in what felt to Majo like a dare. Paulina wearing something of Maria Jose’s wasn’t a strange occurrence, but it somehow made Maria Jose hotter now than it ever had before.

She pushed the feeling away.

“You can’t pretend you don’t want me.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Will you kiss me?” Paulina breathed, not waiting for Maria Jose to do so and standing on the tips of her toes to press their mouths together. Her hands moved to seize Paulina’s waist, like Paulina’s always took hold of her face to kiss her deeper, harder, more.

She knew exactly what _this_ was.

They’d had sex after Paulina had thrown Maria Jose’s ash tray at her, demanding they get a divorce. They’d had it the night after signing the papers, over and over, until all they could do was cry. They’d had it after her mother’s funeral, and they’d had it the night before Paulina had left Madrid for Mexico.

Sex for Paulina was a way of coping, or a way of manipulating even herself.

But Maria Jose hadn’t given into Paulina when they broke up for the second time.

She had kissed her, yes. Kissed her quick and desperate, like she was gasping for breath in a sea that would not stop until it drowned her.

But she didn’t drown, then. She drowned, later; in herself, in Madrid, in her pride, in humiliation and in a pack of cigarettes she now wished she hadn’t bought.

Maria Jose wished she knew what all the heartache had been for, in the end.

“I’m not staying,” Maria Jose panted against Paulina’s mouth, drawing her closer, hands moving on their own to greedily squeeze her ass. “I’m not.”

“You are, tonight.” Paulina moaned, one hand leaving Maria Jose’s face to pull at her button up shirt, stealing away inside, to touch her. It was bold and shy at the same time, like the first time she had touched there. Despite herself, Majo ached for more.

“Tonight.” Maria Jose sentenced, biting Paulina’s lip how she liked, kissing down her jaw, claiming the warm, soft skin of her neck. She took a hold of the back of Paulina’s head, biting the curve of her shoulder, making them walk backwards blindly. They stumbled until Paulina’s back hit the door, giving Maria Jose pause at the loud bang and Paulina’s whine of “ay”. “You okay?”

“Yes,” She answered, throwing her head back against the door, as Maria Jose bit her jaw and slid the frail straps of the slip down Paulina’s delicate shoulders, exposing her breasts. Maria Jose stopped to look down between them. At how Paulina’s chest rose and fell with the agitation of arousal and how the slip stayed between their bodies because one of Maria Jose’s thighs was between both of Paulina’s. “Touch me—” Paulina gasped, when Majo’s mouth made its way down to her cleavage, biting savagely at one slight curve of her. “Maria _Jo-se,_ ”

Maria Jose brought a hand between them, her fingers tracing a line up Paulina’s thigh, teasing, asking in her softest voice, “Did you say his name, too?”

“Maria—” Paulina stopped herself to ask instead, “What are you talking about?”

“Just tell me. Was it like it is with us? Was it good?” She whispered before taking a nipple into her mouth, her hand settling on Paulina’s sex, circling experimentally. Paulina was panting above her, sounding like she could feel the tears that stung in Maria Jose’s eyes.

“Maria Jose, please, don’t.” Paulina begged, taking Majo’s face and making their eyes meet. The shame in Paulina’s made Maria Jose feel less than dirt, not because she felt guilty, but because it made her feel a deep, sick satisfaction to know Paulina regretted it. “Please. How do you know? Stop, stop—I can’t.” Maria Jose removed her hand and then herself, stepping back. The look on Paulina’s face made Maria Jose’s chest hurt.

“I just want to know why.” Maria Jose said, sounding less broken than she felt, feeling more broken that she thought she was. “I need to know if it was worth it.”

A tear slipped down Paulina’s cheek and Maria Jose caught it with a kiss, pressing another kiss, one tasting of salt to the corner of Paulina’s mouth.

“Maria Jose, I was so alone and I—” Paulina held her face a little tighter and out of habit, Maria Jose held her waist and held her closer. “I _felt_ so alone. He was the only one here and I didn’t want him to…I didn’t want him to leave.”

It was a truth Maria Jose had already known and she had waited two weeks to hear it, waited two weeks for the relief she thought it would bring her, but she felt none. Because Alejo had told her about them, smug and cocksure, and Maria Jose had known he was not a man Paulina could love, but a man Paulina could use.

All she could feel was the dull ache of betrayal and the hard weight of guilt upon her shoulders where there should have been none.

This was why she had to leave.

“I’m so sorry, _cari_ _ñ_ _o_.” Maria Jose whispered, kissing Paulina’s cheek again. It was all she could do.

“I need you, Maria Jose.” Paulina said in a soft voice, against her mouth, tasting of the shame Majo had seen in her eyes. “I need you.” She repeated, taking one of Maria Jose’s hands and placing it between her legs. “Stay? I need you.”

_I know, I know, I know._

“But I need to be _away_ from you.”

Maria Jose took a breath that turned into a sob, a sob that dissolved into tears. Paulina was looking up at her with nothing but heartbreak, beautiful and haunting and she couldn’t look at her anymore. Instead, she took the silk and slid it up Paulina’s body, covering her.

“We have to be away from each other.” Majo breathed, wishing she were like _him._ Wishing she could be selfish enough to take Paulina and everything she offered.

“Maria Jo-se,” Paulina murmured, crying quietly as Maria Jose slid the straps back up, slowly, up her hands, forearms, arms and settling them on her shoulders. Her hands were shaking and she held onto Paulina, there, as if she were her anchor. Her _anchor_. She had spent so many years being the other woman’s, that it almost felt wrong. “Please, tell me you can forgive me.”

“The thing is, I don’t have to forgive you.” Said Maria Jose, pressing her forehead against Paulina’s, caressing her damp cheek with her thumb. “I left. I made my choice and I have to learn to live with that, but I can’t do that here.”

“I made my choice, too. I chose the flower shop over you and Bruno. And I was so consumed with taking revenge against Diego that I—”

“Paulina, _ya_.” Maria Jose interrupted, the weariness of over a year of absolute chaos catching up to her. “You’re on parole for a year. We will see each other in a year.”

“A year?” Paulina whispered with a bit of hope and more dread.

“A year.” Maria Jose said, pulling away to kiss Paulina’s forehead, and then simply pulling away. She turned around.

“Maria Jose,” The way Paulina said it made her heart still in her chest. “I want to try again. I want—could we try again?” Memories of an airport, a smile, a kiss and their son saying ‘Yes, those are my moms’ made Maria Jose’s tears spill over once more. Her tears tasted like grief.  
  


She answered the same way she had, then. A firm, “I don’t know”, said as she turned her head to the side, not enough to look at the brunette. She just couldn’t. “I have to finish packing,” Her voice was barely there, but Paulina’s answering sob told her she was heard. Majo ran a hand through her tangled hair.

There was only silence in the room that made Maria Jose’s resolve waiver, but the sound of the door opening and closing told her Paulina was gone.

They both would be, soon.

She looked down at her bed and took an unsteady step towards it and an even more unsteady breath.

Maria Jose Riquelme Torres had to pack. She was going home.


End file.
